


The Beginning

by TheUltimateFanGirl7



Series: Miraculous Bio!Dad AU [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug, Various Assorted Fandoms
Genre: Branch Series, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Prologue, Tom Dupain Is Not Marinette's Biological Father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23528551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUltimateFanGirl7/pseuds/TheUltimateFanGirl7
Summary: The Dupain-Cheng family always seemed to be a perfectly lovely, normal family. The truth is they were anything but. Or, at least, they used to be.
Relationships: Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain, Sabine Cheng/Tom Dupain/Other
Series: Miraculous Bio!Dad AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693174
Comments: 2
Kudos: 122





	The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I got this idea while reading another story, I don't remember which.
> 
> You'll notice that details about Marinette's birth father are incredibly vague and he was never named. This was deliberate. I wanted to be able to make anyone her father in a follow-up story. In fact, this is actually the prologue to a branch series. I have twelve stories planned after this and the only thing that will make them part of the same series is the fact that they share this as a prologue.
> 
> Feel free to write your own follow-up story to this prologue. I'm going to write the ones that I have planned, but it would be awesome to see some different people that I hadn't thought of or even different versions of the same.
> 
> Chow for now ~TheUltimateFanGirl7

The Dupain-Cheng family always seemed to be a perfectly lovely, normal family. The truth is they were anything but. Or, at least, they used to be.

Sabine Cheng grew up in a traditional Chinese home. Her father was an aid to an ambassador and her mother was an important member of the community social circle, her only other family member a world class chef who was frequently busy being a world class chef. As a result, she was raised by a myriad of tutors and nannies. For as long as she could remember, she had longed for freedom. Her whole life consisted of lessons and manners and etiquette [are those the same thing] and she was never allowed out unless for her lessons. Her Uncle Wang was a joy to be around, and she loved him dearly just as he loved her, but he was so busy she saw him maybe once a year. The only happiness in her day to day life was the self defense and combat training her bodyguard - and why she even needed one was beyond her - would teach her in secret during breaks in between lessons. She felt trapped.

The day she turned eighteen Sabine was gone. She left a note for her beloved uncle and left home to travel the world.

Tom Dupain grew up in a good home with loving parents. Or, parent. His mother was frequently away, travelling to all sorts of exotic places, meeting all sorts of fascinating people. She came back once a month for only a day or two, but everytime she did, she brought with her tales of her amazing adventures. She loved him, but she wasn’t really there to show it. He was raised primarily by his father, who was so entrenched in old traditions it was stifling at times. M. Dupain also owned a rather popular bakery, and from a young age little Tom was expected to help. At first it was small things: sweeping the floors, wiping off counters, washing dishes, etc. By the time he began high school, however, Tom might as well have been a part-time employee for all the baking he did for his father’s business. M. Dupain loved his son, but he wasn’t really good at showing it.

Tom loved his parents dearly, but he had grown up feeling he was drowning in his father’s traditions and envious of and fascinated by his mother’s stories. The day he turned eighteen, he asked them for permission to explore the world and find himself. They gave it.

The couple met quite accidentally in London, England one day. She had been wandering aimlessly around in a little flower shop on the street corner, marvelling over all the flowers she’d never been able to see trapped as she was in her home. He ducked in to escape the rain that had started up while she was inside. The minute he saw her he was in love.

She turned around only to come face to chest with him. He smiled sheepishly at her, snagging a rose off a display next to him and holding it out to her. She stared at him before smiling softly and taking it gently.

The shop owner who had been watching discreetly told them to take the rose free of charge.

They spent the rest of their time in London together, and fell more and more in love. When it came time to leave, they made plans to travel together.

They traveled all across the world together, having adventure after adventure. He wanted to experience what his mother had always told him of, and she wanted to do something exciting and different and dangerous. Their relationship thrived from their shared love of living on the edge.

They got engaged while skydiving. Mid free-fall, he pulled out a ring box and offered it to her. Her eyes had widened in shock, before a huge grin overtook her face. As soon as they hit the ground, before evening taking the time to catch their breaths or even disentangle from and/or remove their parachutes, she leapt at him screaming yes over and over again.

His mother loved her, his father didn’t approve, but accepted because she made him happy. Her uncle couldn’t make the wedding, but he sent a heartwarming letter. Her parents weren’t even informed. The only other person she considered inviting was her old bodyguard, but he had been killed on the job a year prior.

They married when he was twenty-four and she was twenty-three, after dating for four years.

The honeymoon was just as exciting as their dating years. They traveled all over and did all sorts of outrageous things. It was in Nepal that everything changed. They had gone out to a local club and both ended up drunk; not enough to blackout the night from their memories, but enough to lower their already low inhibitions.

They invited another man into their bed.

The next morning their bed mate was gone, leaving a signed note thanking them for the night and expressing his apologies for leaving early. They didn’t mind, they understood.

They continued travelling.

And then everything changed.

Sabine turned green and threw up at the slightest whiff of her favorite tea one day at a cafe in Japan.

They went to the doctor after she threw up everyday, sometimes multiple times a day, for a week.

Pregnant.

She was pregnant.

They had to re-evaluate their lifestyle and make a few changes after that.

They first visited her uncle in China, not even bothering trying to see her parents as they were too busy anyway, who welcomed Tom into the family boisterously. He didn’t bother with threats, as he knew quite well his niece could take care of herself.

They ended up back in Paris where he had grown up. They bought a little apartment and ended up opening a bakery. His father had been neutral on their decision, torn between happy his son was following in his footsteps and upset he opened a rival bakery.

They settled into their new lifestyle over time, and watched and waited excitedly as Sabine’s pregnancy developed well. They made a variety of plans to continue their travels after their baby was born. They had to figure in the growing popularity of their bakery, and of course the child. But they were prepared to deal with it.

And then she was born.

She was their beautiful little angel, and they loved her so much.

She was perfect.

They named her Marinette. Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

And they settled down to raise her together for a year or two before resuming their adventures.

But there was a problem.

One which through a wrench in their plans and derailed any future ones before they could even be conceived.

As she grew, it became quite clear that Marinette was /not/ Tom’s child.

No, she was /his/. The man from Nepal’s.

They couldn’t find it in themselves to care. She was still their daughter. That was all that mattered. They loved her all the same.

With this realization came the one that they wouldn’t be able to go on all the adventures they had planned.

They loved their daughter, but that didn’t change the fact that she was conceived when they got just a bit too careless.

They couldn’t afford for it to happen again, and if they continued with their daring lifestyle, it was bound to.

It was a hard pill to swallow, and they mourned The Before for a long time, but they threw themselves into their business and raising their daughter, and eventually they moved on and were happy with normalcy.

They thought briefly about contacting the father, but they didn’t actually have the means to do that, and they were afraid he either A) wouldn’t remember them, B) wouldn’t believe them, C) would try to take her from them, or D) any combination of the prior reasons. Besides, they reasoned, even if he did remember, believe, and not try to take her, there would be a lot of paperwork. Plus they’d have to work out custody and/or visits and child support. They couldn’t burden him with that.

They kept careful record of his name and the events in which they had met him and ended up sleeping with him. They wrote down every detail that told them Marinette was his daughter, adding on even more details as the child aged and grew and became more and more like the man the increasingly realized they knew nothing about. Her personality was very little like either Tom or Sabine, so they theorized she must have gotten most of it from her birth father.

By the time she was old enough to be obviously not Tom’s daughter, Tom and his father’s relationship had deteriorated to nothing and Gina was never around enough to notice anything amiss.

They never told Marinette either.

Not until she found The Journal. The one with all of their observations of her. The one with her father’s name. Her /real/ father.

Oh, she promised to always consider Tom her Papa. After all, he had raised her and loved her as his own, and she wasn’t the result of an affair or one-night stand. But she wanted to meet her father. That’s why, when everything with Lila’s lies and threats and her friend’s abandonment and Chat’s relentless harassment and Hawkmoth’s increased Akuma strength became too much for her, she decided to go meet her father and just... have a break from everything.

Her parents were hesitant enough at first, but eventually gave in. They entrusted The Journal to her, and included a picture of them from their honeymoon, and agreed to pay for her plane ticket - which they didn’t actually end up doing, Jagged (sorry, /uncle/ Jagged, he insists) heard wind of her plans and paid for everything himself.

Master Fu was harder to convince. She begged for the Horse Miraculous so she could come back for fights, and after much begging and pleading and making her case he sighed and sat her down for a long overdue talk.

He was getting old, he explained to her. And Hawkmoth was closing in on his identity. It was really only a matter of time now.

He entrusted her with the Miracle Box, making her the new Guardian.

His last words to her before the Memory Spell took hold were wishing her well with her father.

As soon as she stepped out of the airport, Marinette was hit with the overwhelming feeling that she was truly alone. Sure, the kwamiis were there. And yeah, she could always call her parents, or Uncles Jagged or Wang, or Luka, or Kagami, but they weren’t here with her. She was going to meet with her father - the father who didn’t know she existed - alone. She had The Journal, but would that be enough to convince him? She doubted it.

Marinette took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her fists tightly.

She could do this. She was Ladybug! She could do anything.

With that, she opened her eyes and strode off into the city with a determined look in her eyes and confidence in her step.

**Author's Note:**

> (>'-')> Tada! <('-'<)
> 
> As always, criticism is the root of improvement, so feel free to leave some!


End file.
